January 16th, 2012
We are born into this world profoundly alone, our strange, unbounded minds trapped in our ordinary, earthwormy bodies—the condition that led Nietzche to refer to us, wonderingly, as “hybrids of plants and of ghosts.” We spend our lives trying to overcome this fundamental separation, but we can never entirely surmount it. Try as we might, we can’t gain direct access to other people’s inner worlds—to their thoughts and feelings, their private histories, their secret desires, their deepest beliefs. Nor can we grant them direct access to our own. [Schulz, 2010, p 252]
The feeling of separateness from other people, so eloquently expressed by Kathryn Schulz in her book, Being Wrong, is rooted in a theory which almost all of us learn at our mother’s knee between the ages of three and six—the theory of other minds.
Human beings are self-conscious creatures. Your brain supports a model of the world, part of which is a model of yourself. When you were around four, your self-model became sophisticated enough to support a secondary, higher-level model—a model of your model of the world, and within that, a model of your model of yourself. You began to draw the subjective-objective distinction. Or to put it more simply, as Kathryn Schulz has, you realized you could be wrong about things. Reality was not always the way you perceived and believed it to be. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Kathryn Schulz, privacy, Theory of Other Minds
Posted in consciousness, Damasio, Dennett, Gallese, Kathryn Schulz, Keysers, mirror neurons, other minds, Perner, psychology, Rizzolatti, Wimmer | No Comments »
December 30th, 2011
Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons began, “Many of us want to know what we have most reason to do.” He aimed to establish a foundation for ethics, a project which required addressing the conflicts between morality and self-interest. In asking what the claims of self-interest really are, Parfit came to grips with the question of whether or not there is a rational basis for the special concern that persons feel for themselves. Although Reasons and Persons did not answer that question, Parfit tried to show that the Self-Interest Theory—which claims that each person has the “supremely rational ultimate aim: that his life go, for him, as well as possible”—is false.
Parfit went on to write On What Matters, following an honoured tradition of searching for a kind of Unified Field Theory of ethics—one law, from the correct application of which all moral precepts can be derived. Reasons and Persons famously argued that personal identity is not what matters in survival; and it is surely not coincidental that the phrase “what matters” recurred in the title of Parfit’s new book. Normative ethics consists of giving reasons for action; and reasons for action matter. Because the survival of persons is very important, what matters in survival can be presumed to be a significant part of what matters.
On What Matters says little about personal identity. Parfit’s primary interest is in discovering reasons for action—a rational basis for decision-making. My primary interest is in gaining a better understanding of human nature—of what we are. Parfit’s work is driven by prescriptive aims, mine by descriptive ones. Parfit and I would probably agree that reasons for action are rooted in values. But where he asks what has value, I ask what people actually value, and—a more interesting question—why they value what they do. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: rationality, self-interest, what matters
Posted in Dennett, egoism, John Perry, morality, On What Matters, Parfit, prudential concern, rationality, Reasons and Persons, self interest, self-concern, The Extreme Claim | No Comments »
December 9th, 2011
In t
he war of ideas, the philosophy of personal identity is gradually giving way to the science of human motivation. As we come to a fuller understanding of how and why we tick, from neurological, evolutionary, and ethological perspectives, the puzzles of personal identity that have perplexed thinkers since Locke’s day become less puzzling. In this journey from paradox to plain understanding, perhaps the most important single step is to abandon the idea that anticipation of experience is rationally required.
Giving up that idea is like giving up geocentrism—the belief that motion is defined with reference to the unmoving earth. When people started to see the earth as just another moving object, man was displaced from the centre of the universe. Many were unsettled and alarmed by this idea. Those with a vested interest in the status quo actively suppressed the Copernican revolution. But the idea has proven itself. We now find it liberating and empowering, no longer a threat. It has given us a better understanding of the real world, and has helped enable useful technologies.
Giving up the idea that one’s relationship to oneself is privileged—that self-interested action is sanctioned by a special class of prudential reasons which have no application to one’s actions on behalf of other people—boots the self from its central position in the rational arena. When we see how things are, that anticipation of future experience is just something we do—not justified by any special relation between us and our future selves, because the relations we have to our future selves are the same kinds of relations we have to other people—then our strongly-motivating self-concern no longer has the whip hand. We can take charge of our own motivation. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: anticipation, evolution, sympathy
Posted in anticipation, evolution, self-concern, sympathy | 1 Comment »
November 23rd, 2011
The Apparent Rationality of Prudential Concern
Consider the following apparently straightforward inference:
I do not expect to die soon. Therefore I expect to be alive in the future. I expect I will have experiences in the future. I anticipate having experiences in the future. Because experiences can be pleasant or unpleasant, I have reason to care about the quality of those experiences.
Notice the flow of argument: from a straightforward prediction of fact—that my death is not imminent—and the seemingly innocuous observations that persons persist through time, that persons have experiences, and that experiences vary in quality, to the conclusion that I have a reason to care about the quality of my future experiences. The steps in the argument seem innocent and deeply familiar. These ideas are so closely linked as to seem inseparable.
I suggest they seem inseparable because the core concept of a person is that of a subject of experience that persists through time. Because experiences can be pleasant or unpleasant, we think a subject has reason to care about their quality in the future.
By “subject of experience” I just mean whatever has experiences. I am not claiming that the concept of a person is that of a Cartesian ego, or a spiritual substance, or a biological organism, or its brain, or any sort of psychological entity. I claim only that the concept of a person is of something that has experiences. This claim is uncontroversial.
The above argument illustrates how a motivational idea—having a reason to care about something—can be embedded in what appears to be a straightforward factual description. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: anticipation, Parfit, The Extreme Claim
Posted in anticipation, Cartesian ego, David Lewis, human replication, motivation, Parfit, prudential concern, Raymond Martin, Reasons and Persons, self interest, self-concern, subject of experience, teleportation, The Extreme Claim, unselfishness, Williams | 1 Comment »
November 10th, 2011
Paradigm Shift
I do not expect a theory of personhood to match all our pre-reflective philosophical intuitions, even if deeply considered and strongly felt (especially if strongly felt!) for two reasons: (1) our best intuitions on this subject are demonstrably unreliable, and (2) billions of otherwise sane and competent people hold beliefs about personal identity which are unsupported by empirical evidence, but to which they have strong emotional attachment. These two facts strongly suggest that there is something wrong with what we are naively inclined to believe about our identity. Hence we should not be surprised to find that a satisfactory solution, when it is found, will at first seem counter-intuitive. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: evolution, Kuhn, neuroscience, paradigm, personal identity
Posted in Capgras, Cotard's, evolution, Kuhn, Metzinger, motivation, neuroscience, Open Individualism, Parfit, personal identity, psychology, Ramachandran, Reasons and Persons, self-concern | No Comments »
October 14th, 2011
The term “O
pen Individualism” has a positive ring. If Daniel Kolak hadn’t adopted it, I might have used the word “open” for my own theory of what persons are. I haven’t yet hit upon a term ending in “ism” to represent the idea that persons are informational entities, or (to say the same thing differently) bundles of attributes, as opposed to substances. Like rivers whose constitutive substance (water) is always changing, persons constantly gain and lose attributes. And attributes are easily shared, readily copied from one individual to another. When you learn something from another person, you absorb part of himself. He is a collection of attributes, just as a book (the intellectual work, not the bound volume made of paper) is a sequence of sentences. To learn from another person is like incorporating a quotation from someone else’s book into one’s own composition. In learning from him, we take on part of what he is. The fact that attributes (or information, if you prefer) flow so freely between persons, makes the word “open” appropriate. We are open vessels, not closed ones. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: distributive justice, Kolak, Open Individualism, personal identity
Posted in distributive justice, Golden Rule, Kolak, morality, Open Individualism, Parfit, personal identity, Reasons and Persons, self interest | 7 Comments »
September 30th, 2011
People who think deeply about the puzzle cases of personal identity have come up with a variety of bold and radical responses. Like Alexander hacking through the Gordian knot, Parfit wielded an analytical scalpel to divide personal identity from what matters in personal survival, reaching the conclusion that ordinary survival is about as bad as being destroyed and replaced by a replica. Robert Nozick was so impressed by the difficulties posed by fission cases that he decided personal identity must depend on extrinsic factors: you are identical to whatever person is your closest continuer at any future time, a thesis with the odd consequence that, if your closest continuer after fission dies, you may suddenly find yourself being someone who until that time was someone else, your second-closest continuer. David Lewis’ solution to was to abandon the tried-and-true principle that persons can be counted by counting heads. Since there are two persons after fission, there were two all along, even though, before fission, they occupied the same body and were unaware of their duality. (Bizarre though it sounds, I support Lewis’ solution as one that inflicts the least damage to the traditional concept of a person.) Thomas Metzinger’s analysis led him to conclude that “no such things as selves exist in the world.”
In his book, I am You, Daniel Kolak offers yet another radical theory of personal identity: There is only one person, and that person is all of us. What are commonly understood to be boundaries between individuals, he says, do not “merit the metaphysical significance ordinarily accorded to them.”
Our borders do not signify boundaries between persons. We are all the same person. [Kolak, 2010, p 1] Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: fission, Kolak, Open Individualism, personal identity
Posted in Cartesian ego, consciousness, David Lewis, Dennett, ethics, human fission, Hume, Kolak, Metzinger, Nozick, Open Individualism, Parfit, personal identity, Reasons and Persons, teleportation, thought experiment, Williams | 2 Comments »
August 11th, 2011
If you’re in the mood for an intelligent movie about personal identity, I recommend Patrice LeComte’s Man on the Train (L’Homme du Train, 2002). It’s the story of a minor gangster, Milan, and a nearly-retired poetry teacher, Manesquier, who come together by chance. As they learn about each other, they are attracted to one another’s lives. Manesquier, bored with his quiet existence of jigsaw puzzles and tutoring in the house he grew up in, envies Milan’s freedom, mobility, and toughness. Milan, who looks as if he’s been living rough for too long, appreciates the civilized comforts of Manesquier’s home, and is impressed by the generosity and trust of the older man, who doesn’t lock his doors. Milan recalls two lines of a poem which Manesquier is able to finish for him—an ability which the poetry teacher takes for granted and values little, but which the hoodlum feels painfully lacking in himself. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Man on the Train
Posted in Man on the Train, personal identity, self | 1 Comment »
June 28th, 2011
This is the final episode of the story. If you haven’t read episode 1, start here.
Javeed’s lawyer confronts him at the break. “You didn’t shave this morning!” Javeed doesn’t bother to answer. He didn’t shave yesterday either.
David brings his face down close, nose to nose, so that Javeed smells the lawyer’s sandwich. “To win this we each have a job to do,” David tells him. “My job is to argue your case. Your job—no less critical—is to present yourself as the guy you were before you were arrested. A professional engineer, a proud Canadian, a young husband looking to build a life for yourself and your wife. You can’t afford to let this stuff get you down! Now, I’m going to hoof it to the hotel and beg a free razor; you can shave in the washroom. Another thing—you fell asleep in court yesterday. If you won’t eat, at least have an energy drink!” He hands Javeed a bottle of bright repulsive liquid. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in human replication, life insurance, personal identity, philosophy fiction, self interest, thought experiment | No Comments »
June 22nd, 2011
This is episode 3 of a story about life insurance and the law. If you haven’t read episode 1, start here.
Javeed’s journal: Apr. 1st, 2089. Federal Corrections Facility Abbotsford. This morning I was outside with nothing between me and the open sky—the almost-infinite blue across which puffy clouds blew freely from the wire-topped fence on the west side of the yard to the same fence on the east. Birds fly over the fence, in and out. The robots on the corner towers pay no attention to them. We men, who know we are being watched, do not go near the fence.
I got a call from the Canadian Civil Liberties Union, some kind of liberal-minded NGO. The guy said I shouldn’t give up hope. I said nothing—but kept listening. In the CCLU’s opinion my trial was a travesty. I was incompetently represented. Instead of hanging up, which I should have done, I said, “Tell me something I don’t know.” That only encouraged him. He said there are grounds for an appeal. I told him I’m already in debt, expecting him to back off, but he did not. He said money was no concern—an important principle of law is at stake, and the CCLU is ready to fight for it. I’d be represented by a team of top lawyers, CCLU members passionately committed to overthrow the terrible precedent set by my case. Moreover, I’d qualify for legal aid! There are several grounds for appeal, including egregious lapses of duty of my former counsel (may he eat flies!), all the way to potential conflicts with the Charter of Rights. Would I launch an appeal?
“At no cost to me?” I repeated, to be crystal clear.
“No cost whatever.”
It being April Fool’s Day, and being a fool myself, obviously, I agreed to meet their lawyer, Mr. David Ogilvie.
As I just now read in the Qur’an, “Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it.” So I fight. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in death, human replication, life insurance, personal identity, philosophy fiction, self interest, thought experiment | No Comments »
